Gates project spared 100 thousand Indians from HIV: Study

(October 13, 2011) An estimated 100,000 people in India may have escaped HIV infection over five years thanks to one of the world's biggest prevention programs, an encouraging sign that targeting high-risk groups remains vital even as more donors focus on treatment, a new study suggests. While the initial findings regarding the $258 million Avahan project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, come with large uncertainty due to data limitations and methodology, the study's authors say the overall message is clear: that investing in prevention can make a dent in one of the world's largest epidemics, with an estimated 2.4 million Indians infected. The program was assessed from 2003 to 2008 in six Indian states, home to 300 million people and the country's highest HIV rates when it started. It involved needle exchanges, safe-sex counselling, condom distribution and other interventions to reach vulnerable groups, including truck drivers, injecting drug users, men who have sex with other men, and prostitutes, along with their clients and partners. The project's aim was to reduce the number of infections infiltrating the general population by targeting those who posed the highest risk. The assessment published Tuesday in The Lancet medical journal suggests that higher Avahan grants per infected person correlated with fewer HIV cases in the general population in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. However, that was not the case in southern Tamil Nadu and the small north-eastern states of Manipur and Nagaland. In all six states, an estimated 100,178 HIV infections were averted due to the program.